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Mk
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Do physicists have any idea how much a string or brane would mass?
Mk said:Do physicists have any idea how much a string or brane would mass?
Well, the wire analogy was good, but think of a piece of paper, if you cut it smaller and smaller, it doesn't get more difficult to bend.nightcleaner said:Hi Mk
Anyway, yes, strings are incredibly tiny, on the order of the Planck length, about 10^-33 cm. I don't use inches any more because of the way they clutter up equations with conversion factors. So if they are so tiny, how can they support all those complex vibrations? Think of a piece of wire. You can bend a coat hanger pretty easily. But cut off an inch long piece and try to bend it. That is more difficult, requires more force, due to shorter leverage arm. Make it shorter and bending becomes even more difficult.
Vibration is a kind of bending. If the complex vibrations required to make particles are confined to so small a length, the energy required to force the bending must be very great. Great energy equals great mass, so the strings must have great mass. I didn't make this up, I read it somewhere, but no longer have the link at hand. Perhaps I could find it again with some searching.
Actually point particles are known to string theory as being 1 string, and I think the proton is made of a jazillion strings.nightcleaner said:Then, again, how many of them go into making up a particle? Is one tiny string vibrating all alone there in an isolated space? I have imagined not, but this is another unanswered question for me. I imagine that the strings make up a lattice work of some kind, and that each string is an element in the lattice, and that there must be zillions of them in a space the size of a proton, but this is only a conceptual model which has been waiting on evidence, or at least on confirmation or denial according to some as yet unexplored line of reasoning. So if there are gadzillions of them, and if their masses are additive, then observed masses of particles should be much higher than they seem to be.
nightcleaner As for the dimensional bleeding said:Of course Nature isn't quite a physics journal, I read the article and am thinking if by the hidden dimensions they mean huge p-branes, p-branes highly resemble other dimensions, you can't see, feel, hear or anything them, though gravity does flow between them.
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It could be, so I have imagined, that strings do not have mass at all, but that mass is a property that belongs to larger scales. At the smallest scales, for example in a black hole where space and time themselves become compressed, mass seems to go to infinity. This is an unsatisfactory result. If mass is a large scale phenomena, maybe as time and space are condensed, they fall below the regions where mass has an effective presense. Just a thought, pure speculation.
nightcleaner said:He does not use the path integral method of Feynman, which I found a little dissapointing
The concept of "Mass of Strings and Branes" is a theoretical framework in physics that attempts to explain the fundamental building blocks of the universe. It proposes that the smallest units of matter are not particles, but tiny, vibrating strings and two-dimensional membranes (branes). These strings and branes have a certain amount of mass, which determines their behavior and interactions with each other.
The mass of strings and branes is not directly measurable, as they are incredibly small and exist at the subatomic level. However, physicists use mathematical equations and theoretical models to calculate the mass and other properties of strings and branes.
Understanding the mass of strings and branes is crucial for developing a unified theory of physics that can explain all known phenomena in the universe. It also has implications for understanding the nature of gravity and the origins of the universe.
Currently, there is no direct experimental evidence for the existence of strings and branes. However, some theories that incorporate these concepts, such as string theory and M-theory, have made predictions that have been supported by experiments, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson.
The concept of "Mass of Strings and Branes" is a part of string theory and M-theory, which are attempts to unify the fundamental forces of the universe. It also relates to other theories, such as quantum mechanics and general relativity, and seeks to reconcile their differences and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the universe.